Shocktober: Day 22

Few film’s legacies have so greatly benefitted from the fact that the film itself was bad. The fact that Troll 2 is so memorably bad probably has done more for the film than if it was even just okay. In recent years Troll 2 has given other crappy classics a run for their money as the best worst movie. There’s even a documentary about Troll 2 called “Best Worst Movie” but more on that later. Like many of the best worst classics Troll 2 finds that perfect balance between awkwardness and incompetence, complete with camp, cheese and all the stuff that your worst nightmares are made of. It is a film that is in fact such a calamity that it actually becomes something so delightfully absurd that you simply cannot look away. If someone made a shortlist of the bad movies you needed to see before you die this is a film that may now even be number one, it’s really something you have to see to believe.

The Waits family is going on vacation, and what better place to stay then in the remote rural town of Nilbog (which is Goblin spelled backwards, nice!) Though the town seems peaceful enough, the young Joshua (Michael Stephenson) is contacted by his dead grandfather and warned that the inhabitants of the town are goblins. Wait a minute goblins? I thought this movie was called “Troll 2”, well I’ll get to that in just a minute. So Nilbog is full of Goblins masquerading as people so that they can turn humans into human/plant hybrids and eat them. Why these goblins can’t just eat regular vegetation I have no idea. Oh yeah and the daughter (Connie McFarland) of the family’s boyfriend also comes to Nilbog, gotta have some random characters to kill off right? So the Goblins try to get the family to eat vegetables which will turn them into vegetables, but Joshua retaliates in various ways including a scene where he even pisses on a bunch of food. “You can’t piss on hospitality!” says Michael Waits (George Hardy) the father of the family. Joshua continually tries to warn his family of the townspeople’s intentions but all hell breaks loose in Nilbog. Anymore and I would be spoiling the magic for anyone who hasn’t seen the film.

Strangely enough the film was marketed as “Troll 2” as an attempt to market it as a sequel to the 1986 film Troll. I suppose sequels make more money? The film is clearly supposed to be about goblins which was the original title. The film was also made by an all Italian crew but somehow ended up with an unknown american cast, filming took place in Utah and the rest is history.

It’s amazing what kind of cult following this film has attracted over the years and this has all excellently been captured in the entertaining documentary Best Worst Movie released last year and directed by the original film’s young star Michael Stephenson. The film chronicles the lives of the stars since the films was released (most notably George Hardy) and also gives us a peek into the bizarre fandom this mess has created. I’d recommend it for anyone who likes quirky documentaries, here’s the trailer right below.